The idea of conceputal scheme is clearly present in the classical and modern sociological theory. However, contemporary sociological thinking is highly critical of it and in its radical versions this idea is dismissed altogether. This articele taces various historically formed insights into the nature of concept formation in sociology and tries to demonstrate that without the attempts at creating a coherent conceptual scheme, sociology would be deprived of any possibility to push through a specifically sociological perspecitve on the social world. Talcott Parsons´conceptual level of theory is examined in detail and taken as an example of a viable theoretical approach based on the transformation of sociological concepts. The account of the sociological dilemma of scheme and reality is brought together with Donald Davidson´s argument against the dogma of scheme and reality. The idea of a conceptual scheme has been discredited on contemporary thinking together with the idea and the project of (grand) general theory of society. It is argued that from the generalizing critique of the idea of general theory it does not follow that sociology does not need sound concepts. If it were so then no sociological knowledge that would not refer only to itself would be possible., Jan Baloun., and Obsahuje seznam literatury
This article focuses on the problems and contradictions of sociological theories of action. It investigates critically the development of the theory of action after the Parsonian synthesis, drawing attention to the limitations of articulating the concept of action systematically within a presuppositional framework of analytical theory. Having exposed Parsons general theory of action and some interpretations and criticisms, the paper addresses the so-called “return of grand theory”, spearheaded in the early 1980s by authors such as Alexander, Habermas, Giddens and Luhmann. The article analyses the conceptual innovations introduced by their theories according to Parsons own definition of theoretical work, which - as he said - consists in reconstruction and transformation of categories in the moments of their failure. While it is argued that sociological theory cannot do away with general concepts, it is also argued that these need not have the form of a synthetic theory of action of the kind outlined by Parsons and the Post-Parsonians. and Jan Balon.